WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS (1978)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological. sociological*

WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS was the last collaboration of producer John Dark, director Kevin Connor and lead actor Doug McClure. The previous three movies had all been rousing adaptations of popular Edgar Rice Burroughs novels. However, for whatever reason the producers chose to base WARLORDS on an original script by one Brian Hayles, at the time best known for writing DOCTOR WHO episodes.

I will say that Hayles seems to have made an attempt to catch the feel of a fast-paced Burroughsian adventure, though the first act is so long and leisurely that Hayles and Connor don't have sufficient run-time for a well developed middle portion of the film. The slow opening establishes how an old professor and his thirty-something son Charles (Peter Gilmore) charter a ship in order to search for the sunken city of Atlantis. Their principal aide is engineer Greg Collinson (McClure), who has built a diving bell for the purpose of investigating a particular area of ocean where mysterious disappearances have been recorded.

Greg and Charles descend in the bell and at first seem to have good luck, finding a solid gold statue on the ocean floor. They send the statue up to the ship and continue the investigation. However, the greedy sailors of the crew take over the ship to cash in on the stature, wounding the professor and severing the diving bell's line. In another piece of debatable fortune, a giant octopus shows up, spirits the captain and the three mutineers off the ship and then drags them and the diving bell, complete with its occupants, into a subterranean cavern. 

The cavern is inhabited by the descendants of aliens, who centuries ago built not just Atlantis, but "seven cities of Atlantis"-- though the whole "seven cities" doesn't ever develop into anything much. These human-looking "warlords of Atlantis" are supported by troops of armed gill men. These soldiers were originally surface dwellers, given gills and possibly brainwashed by the Atlanteans to be their servants--  a fate planned for the six human visitors as well.

Or five, rather: the Atlantean king and queen (Daniel Massey, Cyd Charisse) take a fancy to Charles, because he unlike the others is an intellectual. The reigning Atlanteans, descendants of a Martian race of sophisticated telepaths, are effete aristocrats who keep their gill men in a state of slavery, and who also monitor events of the surface world. The Atlantean warlords hope to make Charles one of them, the better to realize some insidious plans for surface humans.

This middle portion of WARLORDS could have been used to expand on the culture of the Martian renegades, and the creatures they've mutated in some vague manner-- including hostile, water-breathing humanoids called Zaargs. But Hayles and Connor no sooner imprison Greg and his fellow humans than events conspire to get them free, particularly thanks to a beautiful gill-girl, Delphine (Lea Brodie). The imprisoned humans spark a rebellion in the servant class, and they make it possible for the five surface-men to rescue Charles before he can be brainwashed. Then it's one big rush to escape back to the surface, despite impediments by various mutant monsters. The Atlanteans can't prevent the humans' escape back to the ship, where the good guys immediately get into a fight with the mutineers, who still want to cash in on the statue. But, in the film's best scene, the giant octopus shows up, reclaims the statue and wrecks the ship. However, most of the humans survive and begin their journey back to civilization.

The sets and costumes are extremely well done, even on a budget, and the rubber monsters are reasonably good, particularly the octopus. Cyd Charisse is an amusing bit of stunt-casting, but none of the actors have much to work with, given the one-dimensional characters. And though McClure played a staunch hero in the other three Kevin Connor films, here he's just a guy who can fight a little bit and gets to briefly romance a pretty girl, though said romance goes nowhere. The narrative emphasis is largely on the Warlords, and though this emphasis doesn't keep a film from being combative-- as seen in the roughly similar WHAT WAITS BELOW-- the Hayles script just doesn't know how to bring all its disparate elements to such an effect. WARLORDS does have a minor fan-cachet though, if only for representing a style of fantasy-filmmaking being swiftly superseded by the scions of STAR WARS.